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Archives for May 2014

Eng-uh-land Swings

05.30.2014 by Ray Niekamp // 2 Comments

My wife and I took a week off to visit England this week — actually, it was six days. Actually, because two of those days were spent traveling from Texas to England and back, we really had only four days.

I was struck by the density of London’s population. Regardless of where we were in the city, the streets were crowded with cars, buses, taxis — and cyclists.

Maybe it was our base of operations — we were in Bloomsbury, around the block from the British Museum and close to the the University of London — but lots of cyclists were out on the streets all day long. Most of them were commuters or what we call “utility” cyclists. They were using their bikes not for recreation, but to get somewhere, or deliver something.

Commuter cyclist in Bloomsbury. (Click all pix to enlarge.)
Commuter cyclist in Bloomsbury. (Click all pix to enlarge.)

Cycle Hire stands can be found every few blocks, and they are well used. Tourists, students, and business people could all be seen riding the distinctive blue and silver bikes. The bikes look thick and heavy, but the ones I observed moved easily through the London traffic.

Cycle Hire stand near St. Paul's Cathedral.
Cycle Hire stand near St. Paul’s Cathedral.
A rider on a Cycle Hire bike dodges a tour bus near the British Museum.
A rider on a Cycle Hire bike dodges a tour bus near the British Museum.

It does take some chutzpah to cycle in London, I think. Most of the narrow streets have little to no room for cyclists, who can be seen hugging the left curb. Motorists might not like cyclists, but I got the impression that cyclists are an accepted fact of life. I saw no confrontations, no flipping off, not even any horns honking. The cabs we rode in were driven by some of the most patient drivers I’ve ever seen, who often held back to give a bike a chance to squeeze into a traffic lane.

In fact, the only cabbie who complained about bikes was the fellow we rode with in Cambridge, and even his criticism took a constructive turn. When we were held up by a woman and her daughter on bikes, the cabbie observed that the woman needed to watch her daughter more closely to teach proper cycling technique. The little girl got too far out in the traffic lane for the cabbie’s taste.

A cyclist takes the lane to beat cars to the next stoplight. Tottenham Court Rd.
A cyclist takes the lane to beat cars to the next stoplight. Tottenham Court Rd.
Most buses carry this warning for cyclists.
Most buses carry this warning for cyclists.
Typical commuter rig. Near the University of London.
Typical commuter rig. Near the University of London.
A segregated cycling lane on a narrow London street.
A segregated cycling lane on a narrow London street.
A team of cycling paramedics from the London Ambulance Service confer at street side.
A team of cycling paramedics from the London Ambulance Service confer at street side.

Our own plans for biking in London fell victim to the foul weather. It rained three of the four days we were there, and a bike tour of the city we had booked was canceled. That only increased my admiration for the everyday commuters, who braved the rain with aplomb.

On a rainy afternoon, two cyclists plod up a small hill -- one bundled against the wet and cold, the other blasé about the whole thing.
On a rainy afternoon, two cyclists plod up a small hill — one bundled against the wet and cold, the other blasé about the whole thing.

With only four days, I really couldn’t get a thorough overview of cycling in London. My impression is that it is regarded as more of a fact of life than it is in the States. London is by no means the ideal cycling city, but it’s head and shoulders above most cities over here. We’re already talking about our next trip there, and how this time, we’ll be on bikes.

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Categories // Travel Tags // Travel

Revisiting the Short Ride

05.23.2014 by Ray Niekamp // 1 Comment

From time to time, I’ll dip into the Bike Noob archives and rerun a post from aeons past — or in this case, three years. I was going to write about today’s ride with my wife, but realized that it would have been almost an exact duplicate of this old post, and since we’re in the middle of packing for a vacation, I thought I’d save myself some effort. But I did tag on a bit of new info toward the end.

My wife has a favorite ride in the neighborhood. It’s only a nine-mile out and back route. It features a long, mild uphill on the way out and a fast fun descent — really a slight downhill incline — for much of the way back. It takes her anywhere from 40-45 minutes to finish it.

I ride it a lot with her. Sometimes, there’s a time crunch, and that’s about all I can fit in. Other times, I’d just as soon do a ride with her as go off on my own. I can’t call it a favorite ride of mine, because it’s not challenging, and in my mind, it’s too short.

But short or not, it’s a bike ride.

My friends over on Bike Forums were discussing this point earlier this week. It seems a lot of them have the same reaction I did: If the ride lasts less than an hour, it’s not a “real” ride. But one old-timer jumped in to point out that a ride is a ride, and regardless of length you will get some physical benefits from it — and the mental benefits might be better.

“Besides,” he added, “just by being out there puts you way above average for your age group.” (This post was on the 50-plus forum.)

We did the ride the other morning. It’s been really humid around here lately, but we’ll put up with that if an early start means we get to finish well before the 100-degree temps we’ve been having kick in.

The first mild incline takes us to the cross street where we turn right. I usually pull over and wait for Pat here, but this time, she was less than 100 feet back. I led her out to the dip into the dry creek bed, then the long incline coming out of it. I got to the end of the street over a mile farther on, and waited at the curb for her to catch me.

She led me around the corner onto a broad new street in a recently-build subdivision. The street ends at a T-intersection with a busy road. We make our turnaround there. We stopped so Pat could take a business call on her cell phone.

On the return leg, I kick it into overdrive for the long downhill. It’s a fun part of the ride for me, and I don’t hold back. Pat trails me by quite a distance here, and I wait for her before we have to make a left turn at a stoplight.

We’ve got one more nice mild downhill and one longish mild uphill in the last two miles of the trip. That uphill is what Strava calls the “HEB Escarpment” segment, because it goes up Escarpment Blvd. past the HEB supermarket. Two days after setting a personal best on that stretch, I got another one today — and not just by a little. I bested the previous mark by a full 10 seconds! I think when I come back from vacay, I’m going to have to really test myself on some of the tougher hills around here.

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Categories // Rides Tags // Rides

How Do I Know I’m Improving?

05.20.2014 by Ray Niekamp // 4 Comments

onbikeWhen I started cycling about six years ago, I was gratified by how quickly I seemed to improve. I built up the number of miles I could ride, I lost a little weight, I recovered from strenuous efforts faster.

But after several years of riding, I fell into a rut.

My long rides weren’t very long — it was rare that I roe for more than 40 miles. I found there was no way I could hang with the A riders in my club, and I was starting to have trouble handing with the B’s sometimes, too.

The lack of improvement got me into a funk, and I was unmotivated to do much riding at all. Heck, I was spending more time organizing my stamp collection than riding the roads around here (not that there’s anything wrong with stamp collecting).

So the question became, how do I get back on track?

For me, there was no blinding flash of light on the road to Damascus. I noticed that little things were coming together — over time, not all at once — and that my interest in cycling was picking up again.

A small, but dependable, group of B riders came out for our Sunday club rides. Sure, maybe there would be only two or three of us on any given week, but at least we could ride at our own pace, and not worry about being dropped by the main peloton.

We started doing variations on our usual rotation of rides — adding new routes or modifications to old ones, so we weren’t riding the same routes over and over.

And then I got Strava. Now, lots of people hate Strava. In fact, I was one of them — as long as I didn’t have it. And even after I started using it, I ran into some problems with data discrepancies between it and my old bike computer.

But I’m finding the thing about Strava that is helping me improve my cycling — perhaps more than any of the other changes I’ve mentioned — is its segments feature. Routes are broken up into segments, which are created by cyclists. And you can compare your times on certain segments with times of other riders.

For example, I do laps around our Veloway two or three times a week. One of Strava’s segments is the “Veloway Loop,” almost a complete lap of the 3.1-mile track. I was a bit disheartened when I started using Strava, because it clocked times around the Veloway that were much slower than I thought I was riding it. Often, 11 or 12 minutes a lap were the best times I could manage.

Now, back when I was just getting into cycling, and constantly improving, I know I could circle that track in less than 10 minutes. So I started paying closer attention to my Strava times for the Veloway, and checking the times of acquaintances to see how they stacked up against me.

I guess I could have gone all out and tried for a Personal Record, or PR, each time I did a lap. Instead, I continued to ride my routine laps. I registered a 10:04 — not too bad, but not what I was after. A couple of weeks later, 10 minutes flat! Only four seconds, but that nice round number represented something of a benchmark.

Depending upon how I feel on a given ride, I might or might not push it a bit when I reach the Veloway. If I was going to set a new PR, it would have to be when I was still relatively fresh — and usually, the Veloway lap comes near the end of my ride, not the beginning.

This morning, I reached the Veloway 12 miles into my ride. I hadn’t thought about a PR, but then noticed how effortless my pedaling was this day. That was on account of a brisk tailwind, and that could be good for my time. But it would also work against me on the backside of the lap, when I was dead into it. What the heck, I thought. Let’s go for it!

I applied an even effort around the track, drawing encouragement whenever I passed another cyclist. When I swerved through the ess curves near the end of the lap, I hit 23 mph — I try to reach 22, so this looked good.

Then, on the way home, I got a green light at a major cross street, and powered up an easy, half-mile long hill past a supermarket. This one has been giving me fits, too, but again, it looked like I’d have a decent outcome.

And I did. Back home, I looked at my segment times. All were pretty mediocre, except the Veloway, where I set a new PR — 9:59! Broke 10 minutes! And the hill — I slaughtered it. My previous best had been 1:25, and today I did it in 1:18 (Yes, I had a tailwind, and yes, I did not have to start from a dead stop at the bottom of the hill, thanks to the green light, but a PR is a PR).

So yes, I’m improving again. Not only are my times getting faster, slowly but surely, but my interest in biking has come back. Biking isn’t all about fast Strava segments. It’s about the ride. After some time in the funk, I’m enjoying the ride again.

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Categories // training Tags // improvement, Strava

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